Domo-arrigato!!

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Trip Start Aug 27, 2006 Previous
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  Kobe, Japan
Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Hello friends and fam and everyone I love! This is the most unbelievable blessing I have ever experienced and everyday I can hardly believe where I am and what on Earth I am doing! Oh my goodness, I am going all the way around the world. Whenever anyone complains about something, like the cake or going to class everyone around them sticks their arms up in a circle ¡V ¡§hello, fella¡¦s we are going around the world!¡¨ It has been incredible ¡V definitely more than I imagined. We just got back on the ship from Japan and that was fascinating. A real live Geisha! I could definitely have spent a month there, exploring the land and the people. I will tell you some of my stories. fº
When we arrived, our ship was welcomed with a brass band at the port of Kobe.
It was so exciting and we were honored they were so excited to have us. I didn¡¦t know until I came on this trip that Japan is 99% Japanese, and only 1% is of any different background. That is a wowser! It is so important then that we give a good impression because there aren¡¦t very many Americans who go there. The entire time I was there, the only people I saw who were not Japanese were S.A.S. kids like me. Whoa. It is just a huge contrast to living in an immigrant society like the U.S where there are people from everywhere! The first night we went to a baseball game and as we were walking around I think we scared some little kids to death. I was with two blonde girls and these little boys looked at us with the face of death, like we had just walked off a space ship. I think we were the first Americans they had seen. It was hilarious, but it made us realize how strange it really is that we were there. The baseball game was phenomenal, by the way. The people were so into it, and so fun! It made me sort of feel like a celebrity though, because the Japanese always wanted to take our pictures there. The cheering they did was so fun and different than in the US. It was much more organized, and no one EVER booed anything, and there were even some up-in-the-air calls. I was impressed. It was on a weeknight and tons of families were there with kids and homework laying out everywhere. It was truly a family affair, and lots of dads came late with suits on after work. And Dad, a Japanese man helped me pick out a hat for you!
I went to so many very moving places like temples and shrines and beautiful gardens, and experiencing Hiroshima I will never forget. The way they have the museum set up you are able to experience the build up and then the actual day in a chronological way, and even though I will never be able to understand what the people went through I do so much more than I ever thought I could. I couldn¡¦t even read some of it because it made me cry so hard I couldn¡¦t see. I couldn¡¦t look at some of the pictures because they were so gruesome. Even more than the deaths that took place the day of the bombing, it is the after effects that were so devastating and the radiation filling that place causing leukemia and other diseases is heartbreaking. The whole museum is dedicated to ending the production of nuclear weapons and bringing peace. It is sickening to me that we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the whole Earth and none of us will trust each other enough to get rid of our own. Oh man, I do not get it. I need to stop getting mad about this. Okay, moving on. I went to some unbelievable temples, and saw the largest wooden structure in the world and the largest Buddha in the world. It was all very beautiful. The last night our shipped was docked in Kobe, my friend Stephanie and I decided we needed to learn how to travel around by ourselves. Whoa, scary! It was an adventure we won¡¦t be forgetting. We were going out for a little sushi/sake action and brought our backpacks with us so we could go on to Osaka that night after we were done in Kobe. We spent about 3 hours on different trains trying to find our way to Osaka where there would be a festival the next day starting at 6am. I¡¦m pretty sure it is about a 25 minute train ride, if you know where you are going. We had many victims, Japanese people that we asked where we are and how to get to Osaka. Now we don¡¦t know much Japanese but what we did know we used a substantial amount! Ichi, ni, sun, shi, go, loc, hitchi, hatchi, cue, jew, the numbers 1-10. We would say them over and over and feel so Japanese, and we also know arrigato ¡V thank you. Domo-Arrigato mr. Roboto! Adding that domo on there makes it more proper. And at a restaurant one night Steph and I made some very fun middle aged Japanese friends who made a million cheers with our sake glasses! Kompai!! That¡¦s another word. And MelaY!! That means beautiful. So, you know, we¡¦ve got all the basics down. It is hilarious to try to communicate, because there is just no getting through. I love the challenge. They think it is hilarious and they are so completely nice always. We had victim after victim, all of them guiding lights to the long awaited festival. Well, we got off the train outside of Osaka and new we had made it to the special destination. LANTERNS EVERYWHERE! Beautiful red and white lanterns ¡V thousands of them lined the streets on both sides, set up for the next morning when the festival would start. We were planning on finding some kind of hostile or hotel that night but when we saw the lanterns we knew we were right where we were supposed to be. We looked up into the streams of lanterns and said together, WE ARE HERE. We sat down there on the side of the street outside the train station and set up camp. We ripped our plastic bags so we could spread them out and got comfortable. Well, to make things even more magical, a very nice older couple brought us a couple cardboard boxes which we ripped and laid on and that made all the difference. We stayed there all night long, and never fell asleep. We talked the entire time except for when we stopped to listen to about 4 songs on the ipod. It was magical. We also had a beautiful exchange with another Japanese couple. They gave us two little oranges and we gave them two pears we had taken from the ship. They looked at us like they were magical fruits. Whoa, we discovered later at the grocery store pears are a delicacy and cost lots of money. We hoard food from the ship so that we can eat it later and since we were way running out of money we took all kinds of food for our little trip to Osaka, like pb and j and of course, pears. On a total side note, it is a different life being a work study kid (also known as a Poor Kid). One of my favorite moments was when we had a meeting for all the work study kids (the 26 who got the work study scholarship and work a little on the ship ¡V me in the library) and the guy was like, ¡§now there was a huge competition for people who deserved this scholarship, but YOU, you deserve it the very most, you are the very most needy¡¨. We have accepted that we are the very poorest kids on the ship and have created the poor kids club and always seem to stick together. Some how all the poor kids end up hanging out in the library ¡V a prime location, and my place of work, stacked and packed. Mom, you get the pun? Anyway, after we gave them the pears, they gave us a whole box of chocolate and it was so yummy. There was quite a culture out there in the middle of the night, and so many kids on bikes, perfectly dressed. P.S. All you who have made fun of me all summer for wearing stretch pants, need to recognize! Stretch pants rule Japan. I felt so at home in them. Anyway, the next morning the festival started at 5:42 with a million people running through the streets pulling these humongous wooden carriage things with Samaria men on the top of them spanking their legs and the air with fans. Whoa! It was crazy and the people were die hard fans for it! There was seriously not even movement in the crowds because the people were packed so tightly on the streets watching. But, let me tell you we had a prime time spot (so did the people we had the beautiful fruit exchange with). We never took a picture of our home on the street; it was too sacred to capture that way. On the way home that morning I felt incredible. As we transferred onto about 6 trains to make it back to Kobe, I recognized that this was one of the best nights of my life. It was 7am or so and the stations were full of people, kids traveling by themselves going to school, and adults going to work ¡V everyone dressed with lots of thought. As Stephanie and I sat on the station with one of her ear buds in each of our ears, we watched the people get on and off. The doors would open and people would hustle on and off, no one smiling but still looking happy, and everyone with a purpose, and a very distinctive bird I had never heard was singing so loudly in the background. Steph and I looked at each other and said, I love this moment. Those were my favorite moments in Japan, and I cannot ever forget the feelings I had on that train, experiencing the morning.
When I first came on this ship, I was so excited for what I was about to do, but I was also longing to get back home, because I missed it so much. Now, even though I still miss the people at home so very much, I can¡¦t believe that one day I am going to go home and not have another country to go to the next week. I am a traveler now ¡V I¡¦ve got the bug big time, and it is all I want to do. I have so much left to see and I don¡¦t ever want to stop. Stephanie and I have made a pact that we are going to experience every country, and I am really going to it. There is nothing stopping you unless you choose to put something in the way. I want to see the world. I am so thankful that I have figured this out while I¡¦m 21, and not married and without all my precious babies.
We are going to arrive in Hong Kong early tomorrow morning and I have a couple hours there before I get on a plane to fly to Beijing and I am unbelievably excited for this trip! We were supposed to come into port in Xindau, China but we have been having a typhoon out here in the pacific. WHooooaaa! Its been craaaaazy! We have been rockin and rollin on this ship, falling over all the time and rolling out of bed. People are throwing up like crazy from the sea sickness. Whoaa typhoon whoooaa!! Books are tumbling off the shelves in the library, which is heartbreaking. I loveee the rolling, oh man! Its fabulous¡Knever a speck of sea sickness for me. Pure enjoyment. We are going straight to Hong Kong though so we can escape the 35 foot high waves, and making arrangements to get back to Beijing by plane. Ohhh yeahhh! I can¡¦t wait! I hope everyone is doing well. Thank you for your encouraging emails. Nothing makes me more happy than to get all those, I can¡¦t even tell you. Write whenever you have the chance! Thank you for all the love. I¡¦m sorry it takes me so long to write back. I am crazy busy here and our internet often goes out for days at a time. I will write again when I get back on the ship after this next adventure!

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